Forever
by sailorbutts
Summary: Eternity is whatever you take the time to make of it. A series of themed KeneMoko oneshots, drabbles, lyriclets and such.
1. boundaries

**A/N: **I present to the general Touhou public what is to be a collection of KeneMoko one-shots, drabbles and lyriclets. Each of these will have been derived from a sort of theme; colours, words, books, films, lyrics, and so on. Feel free to suggest something you'd like to see written about in a review, I will attend to it as soon as I can!

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><p><strong>boundaries<strong>

There are several things that Mokou will never understand. She has never been academically prosperous; she could never gather metaphysics or biochemistry, or know what five to the power of fifty was, or be capable of explaining any sort of systems or theorems in any amount of detail. Abstract thought is quite foreign to her – she can't recall dates or place social, economical and political causes and effects; she can't quote anyone of any importance, or analyse words – it all just cartwheels over her head, wistfully and uselessly and happily, and for having all the time in the world she couldn't possibly have cared any less.

There is one thing she does understand though, quite well. She understands why Knowledge hasn't left the cocoon of safety and satisfaction that is her library for a hundred years; she understands why Margatroid snarls viciously and struggles against the embrace of her frighteningly eccentric kleptomaniac; she understands why, when the moon is full, Keine locks herself away, and when it is not, she discreetly holds herself apart and touches no one. Of course, she can _be touched _by just about anyone – they don't have half a mind to harm all that lays about them as she does – but acquiring permission is quite as possible as Kaguya falling victim to the reaper by the morning, and as such, Mokou can safely say that she has not once seen anyone make any physical contact of even the most innocent kinds with the history teacher _even once._ _Boundaries_ are the thing she understands, and, having so many of her own, she does her utmost to respect them in all of their forms.

For all her understanding of the concept that is personal space, this is why she doesn't really know why she's letting herself feel so exposed as she does now. She has _never_ let herself feel exposed, and yet here she is, allowing the green-haired beast to scrutinise every inch of her, letting her lover trail her thumb softly across her marred collarbone and press her burning lips to her scorched throat.

The last thing she understands fades into yet another mystery, and all of their walls come tumbling down with the most glorious bang.

Ignorance is indeed bliss.


	2. lungs

**A/N:** I'm sure the theme for this ficlet seems odd. So just in case you're curious, its existence bears credit to my being a huge Florence and the Machine fan.

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><p><strong>lungs<strong>

Mokou takes a long, slow drag from her cigarette; as she has learned to with just about everything, she lets it last. She can feel a ton of smoke in all its thick, greyish-black glory steadily permeate her lungs, and, while it's absolutely suffocating, there's no denying this strange sense of asphyxiation is at the same time quite delightful. She's long over the coughing phase – it's almost as good as the air she breaths, now – and so she repeats herself. In, out; it hurts so splendidly.

"The bathroom? That way."

She tears herself away from the fascinating view at Eirin's window and watches in puzzled silence as Keine glances briefly at her, an uncharacteristic look of contempt – or perhaps pain – in her unwaveringly gentle hazel gaze. As quickly as this contact between their eyes is made, however, it is broken, and the teacher drags herself out of sight, in the direction the doctor has just gestured. Mokou frowns, but through her surprise she quickly, almost instinctively inhales, drowning this worry temporarily in another of a more blissful kind.

The key word being temporary; no sooner is she about to let out a smoky sigh than her precious fuel is snatched away.

"No smoking in my clinic," Eirin asserts boldly, mashing the stub of the cigarette against her counter, disregarding the stain, and throwing the thing with flawless accuracy at a rubbish bin across the room.

Mokou doesn't utter a word, but she makes her disapproval quite known as well as she aims the toxins from her breath into the other's face. The doctor dismisses said toxins with a wave of her hand, and her twisted expression becomes quite clear as the smoke rises and her client snarls her irritation.

"You ought to quit."

"Quit smoking?" Mokou scoffs, "Why in the world should I?"

"It isn't good for you."

"Don't give me that kind of shit, everyone says it is."

Eirin raises her eyebrow; not so much amusedly, but as though to say, _I thought better of you_. "You would take _everyone's_ word over a _genius'_?"

"I would take _everyone's_ word," the other counters, an all-too-easily provoked air of hostility beginning to ring about her, "over my _enemy's_."

Now, indeed, Eirin _does _laugh. Mokou narrows her eyes; she's never understood these heartless moon-dwellers, but Eirin is a particularly astounding, mysterious specimen (anyone who would doom themselves to a lifetime of slavery just to escape _guilt _of all things must be).

"I am not your enemy, Mokou. I am not anyone's enemy. In fact, I like to think myself your friend."

"Don't make me laugh."

There may be truth in that Eirin offers her services to anyone who requires them, but there is a considerable difference between _friend_ and _patient._

"Even if it weren't good for me, it can't kill."

She smiles, genuinely, briefly. It fades so quickly into a downward incline of the lips, though, that Mokou cannot be sure it had ever been there at all.

"At the very least I think I am Keine's friend," she says.

Suddenly, the watchguard's expression softens – saddens – and she gazes after Keine; at the space from which she had regarded her with such anguish only a moment ago. Maybe Eirin's right this time. Maybe just this once.

"For her?"

Mokou nods.


	3. butterflies

**butterflies**

Mokou has never been a poet – never any good with words – only ever brash and unrelenting and absolutely charming in her actions. But if ever anyone put it to her to write a verse, she knows she wouldn't hesitate in what to scribble.

The most aesthetic thought ever to cross her mind had been once, as her eyes caressed her lover's bare neck. She had heard a laugh beneath her, and it was asked why ever she was looking so dazed.

"I love you," she had said, with as much ease as she knew it was truer than anything could ever be.

And her lips danced across the hollow of her neck, and her fingers traced the line of her ribs, and a heavy sigh filled her ears, and Mokou thought that if she made even the slightest move in the wrong direction she would break her.

So breathtakingly beautiful, so astoundingly delicate; bringing colour into an otherwise quite lousy, plain existence.

If Mokou had to write a verse, she knows she would talk of the likeness of a girl – hers, alone – to a butterfly.


	4. all is fair in love and war

**warning: intense kaguhate.  
><strong>

**all is fair in love and war**

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single girl in possession of great beauty who refuses every offer of marriage she's received in a thousand years must actually steer the punt from the Cambridge end.

This being the case, Kaguya didn't really need to keep it hushed, but it quite comforted her to think perhaps no one knew her secret. It had never been in the newspapers, as most people's secrets had been at least once or twice (Aya had never _needed_ to investigate the matter when it was as clear as day in front of them all) and she'd never snogged a girl or even eyed one up, so _technically_ no one did have any proof. What she failed to see, however, was that they didn't need it; all of Gensokyo knew what her sexual orientation was, and worse, they had figured out quite easily who the object of her... rather twisted form of affection was.

Keine had been the first outside the princess' circle to figure it out, and though she was decent enough not to speak of it, Kaguya was not.

Their first and last confrontation on the subject had been less than pleasant. It had consisted massively (almost entirely, really) of Kaguya (who always has been and always will be acknowledged not only as the only _closet_ lesbian in all of Gensokyo but also as a total psycho bitch) rubbing an inevitable death into the history teacher's face.

"I don't really understand what you're trying to get at," Keine had said calmly after a time. One grows awfully tired of others stating the fucking obvious, and Keine may have been considerably more patient than your average person but she was no less inclined to feel quite as irritated at the same things that they do.

"Don't you?" the princess spat, "Don't you know she loves you?"

"Of course I do."

It didn't need to be asserted, the name of the individual of whom they spoke. It was a silent and sacred pact between them, never to say her name.

"She won't when you die, you know. Once you're gone, I have no doubt she'll be mine."

"Oh, I think you doubt that completely," Keine returned strongly. "I don't care that she may not love me for long after I die, but it's very unlikely that simply because you're both bound to live forever she'll ever love you. Death has nothing to do with love or hate, Kaguya; it never will."

The lunatic princess had stood very much frozen in her spot, as though the truth that had never dared pass her lips had penetrated her skull truly for the first time only then. Keine almost took pity on her; key word being almost, as the self-righteous other spun sharply on her heel and stalked away, leaving behind her only a soft resonating whisper of "we'll see".

Four hundred and eighty seven years later, on the day Keine was murdered, they did see. Kaguya didn't care enough who had murdered the half-beast or how, or that blood stained sheets were beginning to pile up into a mountain, or that she was dying slowly and painfully. It rang vaguely in the back of her mind that she was dying in Mokou's arms, jealousy stung its vicious sting a little, but she went on telling herself that with her death it would be over, and she would be proven right.

Mokou had never been known to cry, but that day she sobbed for hours, and was sobbing still when Kaguya found a note clutched so tightly in Keine's frigid hand the fickle piece of parchment needed to be forced out.

"It is only by fate," she read softly aloud, "that any life ends, and only by chance that it is mine... not yours."

And she wept.


End file.
